Page 56 of Holding Onto Love

“Crispin!” Vanessa and Jasper both cried out at once.

Crispin halted. He turned to her with a brilliant smile—different from Jasper’s, asymmetrical, thinner lipped—yet sparkling with evident delight. He clipped his heels together and bowed at the waist.

“Mrs. Wardrip. Such a pleasure.” He straightened and turned. “Father, Mother is—oh, hello, Jasp—Mother is coming. Fair warning.”

The earl clapped a hand to his temple. “Jasper, you have gone beyond the pale.”

“What are you doing here?” Jasper demanded.

Crispin’s eyes widened. “I live here.”

“Crispin is home on a few days’ leave. Very few.”

“It isn’t my fault, Father. Wellesley stuck his letters in my hand and ordered me to be back the day before I left.”

Vanessa heard a gasp and turned to the doorway. The countess stood there, staring, white as chalk. Jasper evidently got his height from both parents. Her hair had gone gray but was styled elegantly and her face, classically beautiful, was only beginning to show fine lines. This was what a lady should be. Before her, Vanessa felt like a tramp.

“Mother.” There was a slight tremor in Jasper’s voice, and she hated him for it. “Permit me to introduce—”

“No.” His mother turned her back. “Take her out of this house. Good God, Jasper. What if Olivia were here!”

Vanessa felt faint. Jasper took her elbow in a pincer grip.

“If I leave with her now, Mother, I will not be back.”

The earl spoke next. “Jasper, don’t be foolish. Beatrice, you needn’t receive her. I agree, it is too much. But I have given permission for her to use the Rose Room for tonight.”

“In this house?” The disgust in her tone made the air around them seem to pulse.

“Jasper will not be here. He will be out with friends.”

“Doing God knows what,” she said. “A rake. That is what he is becoming. Ever since that woman put her cat claws—”

“Mrs. Wardrip,” Crispin cut in, “you do not know, by any chance, your husband’s recipe for his cordial, do you?” He stepped to her side, opposite Jasper, the two of them, buttresses, then addressed the earl. “Dr. Wardrip was under my command. He found me one morning…inconvenienced. His intervention was timely. I could not have marched.” He faced her again. “Most usually, cordials are not effective. He didn’t tell you any of this?”

She shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about. And Jasper looked as though he might faint.

“Then I am even more indebted.” His voice lowered on a sigh. “Even if the recipe is buried with him.”

“Oh, Crispin,” the countess said, without turning about. “That’s enough.” Was she angry or anguished? “Mrs. Wardrip may use the Rose Room tonight. But I want her gone in the morning.” She stormed away.

Chapter Seventeen

The Rose Room scarcely belonged to the rest of the house. It was tucked away in the south wing. Far away. It was where they stashed great aunts who came visiting, the ones who complained of the noise of London and the hullabaloo in the Taverstons’ home. The difference, Jasper thought bitterly, was the great aunts asked for the isolation. They weren’t shunted from the family’s view.

Vanessa made no comment about the chamber, its fussy, outdated décor, its persistent and faint odor of lavender water, merely murmuring, “This will do comfortably,” as though speaking to an invisible maid.

“Vanessa, I’m sorry. If I had known Mother would behave so badly, I never would have brought you here.” He had never seen his mother treat anyone with such a lack of courtesy. It wasn’t like her.

“It is no matter.”

The hurt in her eyes haunted him. The resignation.

“It matters to me,” he said. “You matter to me. She will have to learn to accept that.” Vanessa made a dismissive noise, but Jasper was bothered by something else. “And Crispin! That was even more uncharacteristic than Mother’s rudeness. He never refers to his ailment. Never. And bites off the head of anyone else who dares do so.”

“He has an ailment?”

“Well, yes.” This made him uncomfortable. Crispin guarded his privacy so jealously. But then, Crispin had brought it up first. “Since childhood. A recurring…internal complaint. That’s why he needed the cordial your husband gave him.”